Sorry I haven't updated for a little while, but I've been having a good time on ye old Australian first term holidays. It's been sitting in OneDrive for a long time now (because I got a bit stuck), almost complete, and now I've finished and edited a bit of it. 

There isn't really too much of a reason to hate the old woman, apart from her favouring the students that hate her the most and being a bit of a snob with bad hygeine. Most people dislike her but Eddie can't stand her, probably because she'll have some significance in later chapters. She loves addressing people by their last names. Thank you for reading le chapter 8 of Ziixes's cringy story. If you have suggestions or constructive criticism (@PrincessofPugs is on top of this, I still don't feel safe) say anything so I can improve it later on. I'll be including pictures and names of who I think will be important in the book. Yey.

Enjoy if you actually like my content:

Unlike the state school I'd gone to in Australia, the lessons seemed to fly by. The first two classes were pretty uneventful, and no one really cared too much about me being there; I didn't get a big chance to show off my Australian accent and get some shrimp on the barbie.

Photography, the first lesson, and one I chose because I thought it was easy, was interesting but a little over the top, especially when the woman who took it was insane and a person I really didn't want there. The classroom consisted of a couple of desks, bland walls, ancient windows and curtains, a whiteboard, a cabinets for storing the cameras and a whiteboard with the remnants of whiteboard marker from the previous school year.

I sat at a table near the middle of the room quietly-I wanted to see if surrounding myself with people would make me less of a loner-until a mixed group of eight kids walked in. They looked at complete ease with the people around them, screaming obscene phrases at each other for fun.

I learned some of their names as effortlessly as I usually learned other people's names-by listening to shit. The loudest, most foul-mouthed member of Photography was a girl even more petite than Julia Azumi. A boy shouted "Imogen, you are nasty" and I knew Imogen.

Then, the skinny girl retorted. "I'm not retarded like you, but try to understand me."

Drew giggled. It was amazing to hear someone with such a deep voice make such a high pitched one. He shoved Imogen, who sat on the desk next to me, talking to her friends. Her brown hair, flecked with black, was controlled and straight, matching Drew's. Her blue eyes flitted between the seven people standing in front of her.

Drew stood on another boy's foot, and he yelped, losing his balance momentarily as he tried to get away from Drew's enormous physique.

"Get off, Drew!"

Drew let out a big guffaw as his friend toppled onto a desk, his face a sheet of red-hot panic. As he pulled himself up from the desk behind me, he claimed it by stuffing his bag onto the chair, but at the cost of pulling the chair out and crushing the legs of a curly-haired, white-blonde girl. The girl cried out, gripping the desk behind the boy's for support against the surprise attack.

"DOMINIC!"

He puffed out his cheeks, his mildly sallow skin making him look contemptible.

"Sorry, Mercy."

'Mercy' rolled her eyes, but they held a light-hearted twinkle.

She turned around in her denim skirt, half-sleeve shirt and black lace-up boots and stood next to her unnamed friends, chatting animatedly about a TV star.

The heavy, beige door behind us slowly creaked open, and a person walked into the room, with greying hair and a stuck-up demeanour. Groaning inwardly, I recognised the teacher as the old snobby woman from the airport.

Of all the old women it had to be whoever this creepy hag is.

It was incredible that, despite her obvious old age and difficulty walking around while carrying heavy subject material, she refused to give in to being elderly. She wore a navy turtleneck sweater, baggy jeans and slippers. What she didn't wear was dentures, which she needed the most, apart from a bath.

"Sit down," she barked, and the other students hurriedly weaved out of their positions surrounding Imogen, finding chairs at random.

Pointing at me without looking, she made another demand. "Take off that jacket. You'll fry in here."

I ripped off the coat I was wearing, revealing jeans with thermal pants underneath and a black hoodie.

Her face lit up with joy when she recognised me. "Oh! The boy from the airport. I'm ecstatic that you will be joining my class this year. Welcome to Photography..."

She looked down at a sheet of paper on top of her books.

"Edward Weston."

I nodded. "Thanks."

She smiled, showing off the full extent of the mouth she refused to put dentures in. Her stringy hair was tied into an artistic bun, with a fountain pen stuck in it.

Turning to the rest of the class, she lost the warmth in her face and spoke loudly. "Attendance will be taken. Seats will stay as they are for the rest of the year. No funny business. Answer with 'Here, ma'am' when your name is called. Drew Bates," she began.

Drew imitated the stifled voice of the woman. "Here ma'am."

"If you do that again, I will give you so many detentions you'll be old enough that the voice will come nautrally." Her death stare subdued the huge boy, but when the old woman looked down again, he rolled his eyes.

"Imogen Bates."

The little brunette girl raised her hand, and earned a screaming response. "SAY 'HERE, MA'AM' WHEN I CALL YOUR NAME, IMOGEN BATES."

"Here, ma'am," Imogen whispered, unlike the outspoken girl I'd heard before. Underneath the desk, her hands were white from the strength with which she held the desk legs to keep her snide comments under control.

"Good girl. Now, I want you to separate from your twin. Swap with that kid."

She pointed at a dark-skinned boy who shrugged and gathered his things. Imogen did not raise her gaze from the pale yellow concrete floor as she switched places, but tapped her brother on the shoulder as she moved a row behind him and ended up at the far left corner of the desks. The woman nodded and continued taking attendance.

"Dominic Daines?"

The sallow-skinned boy muttered 'Here, ma'am', slouching into his seat.

The woman shrieked, "Straighten your posture!" and Dominic sat upright, eyes wide in shock; but she had already returned to her laidback pose. "I will not have bad posture in this class. Roshan De Silva."

The dark-skinned boy said the phrase, saluting and even saying "Aye".

Pursing her lips, the elderly woman continued, her head barely reaching over the desk. She had obviously enjoyed the way Roshan had addressed her.

"Yong Kwon?"

"Here, ma'am."

"Timothy O'Sullivan?"

"Here, ma'am."

"Mercy Rae?"

"Here, ma'am."

"Reeve Santiago?"

"Here, ma'am."

"And, of course, the final boy on the list, whom I am sure you will take a liking to, Edward Weston."

"It's Eddie."

"Say 'here, ma'am'."

This feels an awful lot like army rollcall.

"Here, ma'am."

Nodding, the woman ticked off my name and put the attendance sheet in a folder. Scratching off the crusty marker with her bare fingernails, she wrote her name on the whiteboard behind her in barely legible writing.

"For those of you who don't know me or can't read, my name is Ms Watson. I will be teaching you the basics of photography so that, when you enter junior and senior year, you will have the sufficient knowledge to continue photography should you choose to do so. If you don't pay attention in this class, you will not pass. Due to the strict rules placed in each subject, the electives you choose and fail will be ones you will be unable to continue. A majority of what you learn will be covered in the school, but if you don't understand it will be your responsibility to research the topics covered or speak to me. Any questions?"

"Why is your name Ms Watson? Are you single?"

I looked to my right to see Drew.

Watson gritted what was left of her teeth. "No personal questions, Bates One."

Shutting his mouth, Drew twiddled his thumbs. "Is there anything else you need to tell us about before you start teaching us?"

Watson gasped.

"I almost forgot to notify you."

Grasping a fistful of papers, she flicked through the pages until she found what she was looking for. In a fake cheerful voice that distracted me from her usual snotty one, she read out what was on the page while fiddling with the pen in her bun.

"When students at the school begin their sophomore year, they begin a special course that they are, unfortunately, forbidden from speaking of to the younger students. It is a course about each individual's family history and the untold stories of early nations. You will begin this course in a few weeks' time. It is unlike anything you've learnt about and only the students with a true link to the subject matter will pass."

"How exciting," muttered Mercy, who sat to my left. "Another class I'm guaranteed to fail."

"They're making a big deal out of it. I bet it's just to scare us into study habits or something. It'll be simple," replied Dominic. "You worry way too much about pointless stuff."

I tried to include myself in their conversation. "I'm sure it'll be easy-peasy. Nothing to stress about."

Both Dominic and Mercy tilted their bodies towards me. Disgust sparked in the girl's eyes but she did not speak back. Dominic was more open, nodding and continuing to speak.

"Whatever weird personal history stuff they want us to learn about, the people who actually have records on their ancestors will do best, not the people with a knack for it. If you've got nothing to offer, you might as well give up. And if nothing is the best you can do, don't bother."

"Yeah, guess so," agreed Mercy.

"I mean, both sets of my grandparents had one kid-my parents-and all four of them died either just before or just after I was born, so I've got no one to ask about. My family's not really into keeping old papers or war memorials."

"You could look at in online or go to a cemetery or something."

"We have a dumb family tradition where anyone who dies is cremated. No physical evidence at a graveyard, no online or original records, no nothing. I'd like to see them try uncover anything my family did."

"My great-grandmother was British. She was a nurse during the first World War. I could say something about that-"

A cackling voice cut into Mercy's sentence. "Rae and Daines, shut your mouths."

Ms Watson strode up to their desks, actually trying to pat my head, as if I was in a cheesy high school story or some elementary school. I leaned away, and she didn't seem to notice, resting her hand on Dominic's desk. "If you want to pass this class you're going to have to use visual speech, not verbal."

She leaned towards Dominic. "But I couldn't help overhearing what Daines was saying, about not worrying about Individual History. You had better start worrying, because it's one hell of a shit-hole if your family records are missing."

Her foul breath ranged out across Dominic, Mercy and I, who fought for control over our bodies. I desperately wanted to wriggle away from the rank stench that was the old, single woman. The stringy grey hair still attached to her head was shedding all over Dominic's desk, and her grubby hands left marks on his desk when she bent down and held it for balance.

"Edward Weston can introduce himself to you all now, and you can say something to him if you wish," the elderly woman said as she returned to her wooden station.

I stood up, not really wanting to say anything, but I felt trapped by Ms Watson's fierce personality, hidden under the slacker one.

"It's Eddie Weston. I moved here a few days ago from Australia with my mother for a good job. So don't ask where the accent came from."

Someone said 'G'day' and I tipped a fake hat.

"How old are you?" asked the boy called Roshan De Silva.

"I'm turning sixteen in a few weeks."

Ms Watson asked about my interests, but I decided to lie a bit.

"I'm not really big on any hobbies or subjects, but I had a job at McDonalds before I came here. Trying to find out if I like Photography-"

The old hag interjected. "That's wonderful, Edward Weston. Now, please sit and I'll provide everyone with an outline of the courses we will be studying this year."

When a piece of paper was handed to me, I cried out inwardly. A thick, wordy outline for each course was evident on the double-sided sheet. It was barely inside my limited English range.

Every kid groaned, until Ms Watson barked, "You made a choice to do Photography. Now you're sticking with it. For the rest of the year. Don't go back on your choice."

"This is ridiculous."

"What does aberration even mean?"

"We don't get to touch the cameras until after November?"

"Too hard. I'm going to fail."

We might not understand a single word of what you're saying, but sure, let's stick with our choice.